Kerkorian in war with ex-wife for child support

Published: Sunday, February 24, 2002

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP)  As an amateur boxer in the late 1930s, he was known as "Rifle Right" Kerkorian. As a financier, he has bought and sold fabled movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer several times, built a casino and hotel empire in Las Vegas and made millions as a major investor in Chrysler Corp.

Now, at 84, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian is engaged in quite a different fight with an ex-wife who's asking a court to award her $320,000 a month to raise her daughter.

Despite being a major player in the glamour of Hollywood and the glitz of Las Vegas, Kerkorian has remained a very private man. He shuns publicity, does not give speeches and will probably never write a tell-all memoir. He declined to be interviewed for this article, and people close to him also declined to talk, citing his desire for privacy.

But the court battle over support to his three-year-old daughter Kira has become very public. It's also taking place at a time when Kerkorian is trying to sell his 80 percent stake in MGM, although analysts say his troubles are not likely to hurt that deal or the running of his other businesses.

"I seriously doubt he would ever let personal issues cloud management judgment," said David Miller, an analyst with the investment firm Sanders Morris Harris. "This guy's a very savvy operator, as are the folks at MGM."

The court documents in the case of Kerkorian vs. Kerkorian contain the kind of he said/she said scenario that the billionaire has always avoided  and hoped to eliminate through several confidentiality agreements signed by his ex-wife, Lisa Bonder. Kerkorian's lawyers contend that when Bonder filed her claim for more child support, she violated those agreements.

In the papers filed by Bonder, a former tennis pro, Kerkorian is described as an extravagantly rich man who routinely walks around with $5,000 to $10,000 in cash in his pocket and has his thick hair trimmed every 10 days at a cost of $150 per haircut.

He became a father for the third time at 82, and agreed to marry Bonder for 30 days so the child would not be illegitimate, the papers contend. Then he balked at giving his ex-wife and daughter enough money to pay for bodyguards, a house in Beverly Hills, private schooling and vacations in Hawaii and France, Bonder claims.

In his own court papers, Kerkorian paints Bonder as a disturbed person who lied about his paternity and threatened to take her case public if Kerkorian didn't meet her escalating demands for money.

Kerkorian has said DNA tests show he is not Kira's father, although he has pledged to support her. Attorneys representing Bonder argue that her ex-husband has affirmed his paternity in several sworn documents.

Kerkorian, ranked by Forbes magazine as the 46th richest person in the world with a fortune estimated at about $6.5 billion, is no stranger to conflict, but his public battles have tended to be in business.

During World War II, he worked as a civilian pilot for the British Royal Air Force, ferrying bombers from Canada to England.

He returned to California in 1945, bought a single-engine plane and started flying charters to Las Vegas. He started an airline and 15 years later, sold it to Studebaker for $1 million.

With the profit, he bought 40 acres on the Las Vegas strip and leased the land to the company that built Caesar's Palace in 1966. The following year, he built the Hotel Internationale, then the world's biggest hotel, on another piece of land.

The hotel was a hit and in 1969, with a fortune of nearly $200 million, he bought fabled movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1981, he bought United Artists and combined the two companies.

After the studio struggled, Kerkorian sold it to Ted Turner in 1986, then bought back the MGM logo and United Artists when Turner couldn't make the payments.

In 1990, Kerkorian sold the studio yet again to Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti  and bought it for a third time in 1996 after Parretti defaulted on his payments.

Kerkorian is now trying to sell the company again. Company executives said MGM needs to become a larger business to compete with other entertainment conglomerates such as Disney and AOL Time Warner.

MGM, whose recent movies include "Hart's War," "Rollerball" and "Legally Blonde," has fared well under Kerkorian. In the fourth quarter, net income more than tripled to $39 million, or 16 cents a share, up from $12.4 million, or 6 cents per share in the same period last year. Revenues also climbed to $375 million, up from $292 million.

Due to accounting rule changes, the company lost money for the full year, posting a $438 million, or 24 cents per share, shortfall compared to a profit of $50.9 million, or 25 cents per share, the previous year.

"This is the first management team that has run the company with the shareholder in mind," Miller said.

Shareholders seem to be satisfied and are ignoring Kerkorian's personal strife. MGM stock is trading in the $18 range, midway between a low of $13 in September and $23 last month.